


Bucky

by MorbidAesthetic



Series: Bucky and the 21st Century [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Character Study, Drinking, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Maybe - Freeform, Mental Health Issues, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, New York City, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Sort Of, To Be Continued, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 15:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorbidAesthetic/pseuds/MorbidAesthetic
Summary: Bucky is still working on his life in the 21st century. Steve promised to help him, but he's always away on missions for whoever he works for these days. Somehow, he manages to make friends.





	Bucky

He sits in the corner of his apartment, nodding his head against the wall to the music playing through his headphones. It isn’t very loud, but he doesn’t like the music to be so loud that he can’t hear anything or anyone else. His therapist tells him it’s part of the post-traumatic stress, some sort of hyper-vigilance, but he just calls it common sense.

Steve is off on a mission for Stark, or Fury, or whoever he works with these days. Romanoff is supposed to be on call if anything goes wrong, but something going wrong could include anything from breaking a plate to trying to murder someone.

He was having an okay time beating up and/or killing the leftover Hydra loyalists (or sometimes stalkers or anyone else) for cash, or just for kicks, but Steve tells him he shouldn’t kill people anymore, no matter who they support, so he listens, or tries to.

Bucky likes Romanoff, but he prefers some of Steve’s other friends, like Wilson or Barton. Barton may be a walking disaster, but he at least isn’t always on edge around him like Romanoff is. He doesn’t blame her, but still, it can be grating. He wonders if that’s how Banner feels around her. 

Wilson, Romanoff, and Barton aren’t the only avengers he knows about. He reads about most of them online, mostly from the stuff that Romanoff released a few years ago and made Reddit’s entire year. He could identify Maximoff, Vision, and either of the Asgardians on sight. Whenever Steve talks about them though, he tries to seem less educated than he is.

Most of the time, though, he doesn’t really think about the Avengers. He spends most of his time avoiding cops and sometimes avoiding Steve. Jessica helps with that.

As much as Steve has sacrificed for him, and as much as he is still sacrificing for him, Bucky is already a little tired of Steve constantly breathing down his neck. Yes, he is his friend, and he hasn’t seen him since 1945, but being alone for so long has become the norm, and it’s a little weird to have another person in his presence all of the time, no matter who it is.

Eventually, he gets up and steps out of the corner, opting instead to go to the roof, and he sits in the chilly night air. His phone is in his jeans pocket, but he left the headphones on the counter, if only because he didn’t feel like carrying them around.

He’s glad he grabbed a jacket on the way out, shrugging it on. It’s some old canvas jacket he found somewhere (probably Clint’s, he thinks), and it’s good enough to sit on the roof with. The night isn’t particularly windy, so he can live with it. 

Bucky sits there for a moment before he notices that there’s another person on the roof with him. The guy is dressed like fucking Satan, (seriously, what the hell) and looks like he’s about to fall off the roof. (An easy target.) He almost does fall off the roof, until Bucky takes his arm and leads him back to the middle of the roof like he’s drunk and they’re friends, instead of complete strangers.

The guy flops onto his stomach three seconds later, about to use Bucky as something to hang off of when Bucky moves away instinctively. He still has the urge to flip anyone who touches him, but he fights it. Aftereffects of Hydra, Steve says. Perfectly normal.

There seems to be blood coming from him, but he can’t see exactly where. The red suit makes it slightly more difficult, but Bucky’s pretty sure the guy has a couple broken ribs, and maybe a stab wound or two. 

“What the hell are you doing on the roof?” He says lowly, rolling the guy over onto his back. The guy makes a sort of grunting/moaning noise and Bucky wonders if there’s more than a couple broken ribs.

“Could ask you the same question.” He tells him, and Bucky almost groans. 

 

Bucky sighs. “I live here.”

“Well, I’m not sure I can get home from here.”

“Where do you live, Hell?” He says, a jab at his appearance, but Satan ignores the comment.

“Hell’s Kitchen. Near a big neon sign” The guy replies, because of fucking course a guy dressed like Satan lives in Hell’s Kitchen. But Bucky doesn’t say anything. He’s pretty sure the guy is blind, and he’s still not sure if it would be a dick move to just leave him here like he wants to do.

Besides, if he’s blind, there isn’t any way that this guy could identify him. No one has recordings of his voice, not in English, anyway. 

“How do I know that you aren’t just going to kill me?” The guy asks. So he does have a sense of danger, at least a little bit.

“I don’t even know who you are.” Bucky replies, “And if I wanted you dead, you would be dead already.” It isn’t a threat. It’s just a statement of fact.

The guy seems to think about that for a moment. Then he shrugs.

“So who are you?” Bucky asks, but the guy stays silent.

“People call me Daredevil.” The guy begrudgingly says. 

“People call me all sorts of things. What do you call yourself?”

“Matt.”

“Fine. I’ll take you home.” 

“Sheesh, buy a guy some dinner first.” The guy mutters, but tries to stumble to his feet anyway. He almost falls over again, but this time Bucky steels himself and helps him up, because he figures he doesn’t really want the guy to fall off the roof. Either that or he doesn’t want the cops around after he dies, asking questions.

They manage to get down the fire escape back into Bucky’s apartment, where Bucky spends fifteen minutes convincing the guy to get out of his devil outfit and into a tee shirt and sweatpants that he’s pretty sure are Steve’s, but whatever.

So Bucky and him somehow get out of the apartment building without seeing anyone, because the guy he got off the roof has super hearing or some shit, and can tell where people are just by their fucking footsteps, even if they’re a couple floors away.

“So what’s your name, then?” The guy asks him, and Bucky’s left with a couple seconds of indecision before answering.

“Bucky.” He says, and waits a minute for his reaction, to see if he registers the name Bucky with the Winter Soldier, or anything else that he doesn’t really want to address right now. But the guy just has an unreadable expression, so Bucky just falls silent and continues walking.

“Do you know Jessica Jones?” He asks.

“Yeah.” 

They walk in silence for a bit after that, with Bucky trying to make sure that the guy isn’t going to trip. Yeah, he managed to get up onto the roof without falling, and he’s pretty sure that there are a bunch of unconscious people in the alley, but he still doesn’t really know how well the guy gets around. The guy doesn’t trip, though, and Bucky wonders if he has like a sixth sense or something.

Eventually they get to Hell’s Kitchen. Steve doesn’t really live that far from the neighbourhood, and Bucky is used to coming to this part of the city anyway to talk to Jessica. She invites him to do shots or drink or whatever, as long as it includes alcohol. He’s tried to tell her that she might be an alcoholic, but she just waves him off.

It seems like Satan isn’t much of a talker, so Bucky continues to watch out for large neon signs near apartment buildings. They manage to find themselves at the bar that Jessica drags him to, and Bucky decides fuck it, maybe Jessica is here and can help him figure out where the fuck Matt even lives, because he sure as hell doesn’t see a big neon sign anywhere.

“Hey, come in here.” Bucky says, and they walk inside the bar, with the guy only being a little tugged on by him. He makes a cursory glance to where Jessica normally sits, not expecting her to be there, (mostly because it must be four AM by now) but she’s there, sipping on whiskey in the corner.

Her eyes give Satan the once-over, (Bucky can see the faint recognition in her eyes) and then when she and Bucky lock eyes, she just gives him a shrug. So he walks the guy over to where Jessica is sitting, and they slide into the booth.

Bucky sits in his usual chair, the one where he can see most of the bar and the exit at the same time. (Another effect of Hydra/PTSD, or so his therapist says. His therapist says a lot of things.) 

“Hey, Matt. Bucky.” Jessica says, tipping back the rest of her whiskey. A waiter comes by and refills her glass, giving Bucky his usual bottle of Four Roses and asking what Matt wants.

“Nothing, please,” Matt says politely.

“So, Bucky, how did you find Satan?” She asks, looking over at Matt with a dry look. He still looks like shit, even with as much as Bucky tried to sew him up and stanch the bleeding. He’s pretty sure he managed to get most of it.

“He almost fell off my roof.” He says, and takes a sip of the Four Roses. (Both Bucky and Jessica are pretty sure that he can’t get drunk, but that’s not from a lack of trying.)

“Mm.” Jessica replies with a sip of whiskey, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. He’s pretty sure it’s not, but he hasn’t had normal since 1945, so what does he know. Bucky’s still adjusting to normal.

Bucky finds himself loosening up a little more as conversation drags on, because he knows Jessica, and he learns that Matt is endearing in his own way. There are lulls in the conversation, but they aren’t uncomfortable, something that Bucky never has with Steve. Steve usually tries to pick the conversation back up, or finds something else to do. This happens a lot.

He wonders how Steve is doing on his mission. He’s pretty sure that someone is with him, maybe Wilson or someone. Whoever he’s with, he hopes he’s doing okay.

He’s pulled back to the table when Matt finally gives in to Jessica’s constant pestering and orders some sort of liquor, something weird-sounding that he doesn’t remember the name of. He settles in with the two of them, sitting between them. 

“So, Matt. What did you do this time?”

Matt laughs, one of those breathy what-can-you-do exhales.

“Few more guys than I thought.”

“Well, Bucky’s place is a little further than your usual places.” She chuckles, tipsy. It makes Bucky wonder how long she’d been here before they came in, knowing her tolerance.

“When Satan comes knocking, you know you have a problem.” Bucky says, smirking. Matt doesn’t say anything, just takes a sip of his drink.

They sit in silence for a while, and one by one, they make their excuses. Eventually, only Bucky and Jessica sit at the table. Jessica continues drinking whiskey (more than tipsy by now), and Bucky continues to drink his Four Roses like it’s water.

He makes an excuse to go to the bathroom, and after he does his business and washes his hands, he stares at himself in the mirror for a moment.

His face is still almost foreign to him. It’s still Bucky, or Barnes, but it isn’t James Buchanan Barnes, or quite the Winter Soldier either. It’s just Bucky, which is how he’s thought of himself since Steve pulled him out of Romania. Before that he just was. Nobody cared about his name and at that point neither did he. 

After splashing some cold water on his face, he steps out of the men’s room to find a guy talking to Jessica. Rolling his eyes, he heads towards the door of the bar, until he notices that Jessica looks agitated and the guy has a firm grip on her arm and is trying to pull her out of the booth. 

Bucky heads back to the table, taking care to nudge the guy out of the way as he slides into Jessica, gently nudging her over and separating her and the creep.

“Hey, I was talking to her.” The guy protests, now separated from the object of his creepy fantasies.

Bucky says nothing, just drains the last of his drink and sets the cup carefully on the table.

“Hey. What the fuck, man?” The guy is now angry, and only further still when Bucky doesn’t respond. “Asshole.” The guy is drunk, he can smell it on his breath, and the guy decides that he isn’t going to take shit from Bucky. He throws a punch.

Bucky catches it in his hand, the metal one. The guy seems to rethink his position, backing up with his hands in a placating motion. Bucky glances at the bartender and gives a small nod, letting him know that there isn’t going to be a fight tonight.

“Buckyyyyy.” Jessica says, leaning on him and latching onto his sleeve. Bucky manages to resist his reflex to wrench it out of her hands.

“Jessica, go home. You’re drunk.”

“No I’m not.” She slurs, continuing her hold on his sleeve. 

“Come on.” Bucky grumbles, pulling her out of the booth by his sleeve. She follows him down the street, and he realizes that only has a half-remembered idea of where she lives. There is no way she’s getting home by herself, and hey, he may be an asshole, but there isn’t any way that he’s leaving her in the bar or on the street, especially after that guy could have drugged her or something. He may be an asshole, but he isn’t a complete dick.

There is no small amount of swearing, complaining, and suspicious looks from strangers as he takes her back to his place. Once they get in the door, Jessica flops down onto Steve’s (onto their, he has got to stop that) couch, almost asleep already. 

Bucky is too tired to argue, but he goes through the routine of making sure every single one of the windows and outside doors are locked before setting in a corner. He doesn’t like to sleep in a bed, preferring the couch or one of the main rooms. Steve has stopped arguing about it. 

He also wants to sleep in the living room because that’s where Jessica is, and he doesn’t know if she was drugged or whatever else, so he just picks up a blanket from the chair and curls up in the corner like a cat after placing a cup of water and the bottle of advil next to the couch.

**Author's Note:**

> The Four Roses thing was a thing from another fanfiction with Jessica and Bucky, so credit to whoever that was.
> 
> Also, a cookie to anyone who spots the Guardians of the Galaxy reference.


End file.
